An eighth Pirelli World Challenge driver’s title may not be in the cards for Peter Cunningham and his RealTime Racing team, but it isn’t stopping last year’s GTS class champions from focusing on finishing 2013 strong in the final rounds at Sonoma (Aug. 23) and Houston (Oct. 4).

With RealTime having raced in the World Challenge for two decades, Cunningham and Co. are long used to the sport’s ebbs and flows.

“These guys have been doing this a long time and they certainly enjoy the positive feelings that you get when you win,” Cunningham said in an interview with MotorSportsTalk on Friday. “They’ve also endured some tough days over the years and, certainly, during the course of this year.

“But we’re hopeful that the track configuration at Sonoma, as well as the brand-new configuration – probably to most everyone – at Houston will give us a chance to be on the podium at both venues.”

The season has had its share of ups and downs for Cunningham and RealTime. They started off the year with three consecutive podium finishes, but were unable to find the podium again until the Mid-Ohio doubleheader earlier this month, which featured Cunningham claiming back-to-back runner-up results.

In between were several low points, including a Race 1 crash at Detroit’s Belle Isle (22nd place) and a flat tire during Race 2 at Lime Rock Park that knocked him off a potential podium to a 13th place finish. But perhaps toughest of all was an engine issue on his No. 42 Acura TSX that caused Cunningham to miss the start at Toronto last month.

“RealTime has been competing in the championship with this multi-car effort for 21 years, and we looked back and could only find one other occasion in all those entries where we weren’t able to make the start of a race,” said Cunningham. “It was definitely an anomaly.”

Cunningham’s competition in the GTS class – which he regards as the “deepest” in that regard in the World Challenge – has capitalized on those instances of bad luck. With 304 points left on the table, he finds himself officially out of the title hunt at 339 points behind leader Jack Baldwin in his No. 73 GTSport Racing Porsche Cayman S.

But he and RealTime can still send a message in these last few events, especially with some regained momentum behind them after Mid-Ohio.

“Getting the two second-place finishes at Mid-Ohio was big for us,” said Cunningham. “They weren’t wins but they felt like wins because of certainly how Toronto went, but because of how our season has kind of evolved.”

You can watch the Pirelli World Challenge’s recent events at Toronto and Mid-Ohio tomorrow afternoon at 2 p.m. ET on NBCSN.